Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) civil rights, rights that a nation's inhabitants enjoy by law. The term is broader than “political rights,” which refer only to rights devolving from the franchise and are held usually only by a c...

(Encyclopedia) states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to ...

(Encyclopedia) civil disobedience, refusal to obey a law or follow a policy believed to be unjust. Practitioners of civil disobedience usual base their actions on moral right and employ the nonviolent technique of p...

(Encyclopedia) gay-rights movement, organized efforts to end the criminalization of homosexuality and protect the civil rights of homosexuals. While there was some organized activity on behalf of the rights of homos...

(Encyclopedia) human rights, universal rights held to belong to individuals by virtue of their being human, encompassing civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights and freedoms, and based on the notion ...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Constitution of the United States, document embodying the fundamental principles upon which the American republic is conducted. Drawn up at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787...

(Encyclopedia) water rights, in law, the qualified privilege of a landowner to use the water adjacent to or flowing through his property. The privilege, also known as riparian rights, may be modified or even denied ...

(Encyclopedia) Justice, United States Department of, federal executive department established in 1870 and charged with providing the means for enforcing federal laws, furnishing legal counsel in federal cases, and c...

(Encyclopedia) natural rights, political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights. The modern idea of natural rights grew ou...

(Encyclopedia) Bill of Rights, in U.S. history: see Constitution of the United States. ...